COA finds that defective plea to two charges resolved by global plea agreement did not require withdrawing plea to third charge.
State v. Ruben Alex Pacheco, 2025AP1767, 11/4/26, District II (not recommended for publication); case activity
The COA affirmed the circuit court’s order allowing the defendant to withdraw his pleas to two of three cases resolved by a global plea agreement, but leaving the third plea intact.
Ruben Alex Pacheco entered a global plea agreement and pled to two operating while intoxicated charges (OWI) in separate cases and a charge of repeated sexual assault of a child in a third case. Pacheco was allowed to withdraw his pleas to the OWI offenses because the State charged the first as a criminal offense, although more than ten years elapsed since his previous OWI offense; the second OWI charge was therefore also misclassified. However, the circuit court denied Pacheco’s motion to withdraw his plea in the sexual assault case because the totality of circumstances did not support plea withdrawal. (¶¶ 2-8).
Pacheco argued on appeal that the circuit court erred because the limited plea withdrawal deprived him of benefits he negotiated under the global plea agreement, including dismissal of charges and the State’s recommendation of lesser concurrent jail time for the OWI offenses.
The COA recognized that the usual remedy for a defective plea agreement is to reinstate the original charges. (¶ 15) (citing Lange (COA 2003)). However, the circuit court has discretion to determine what remedy to apply under the totality of circumstances by considering the defendant’s and the State’s interests. (¶ 19) (citing Robinson (Wis. 2002)). Thus, the COA observed, there is no right to have a global plea agreement vacated in its entirety when one of the convictions is defective. (¶ 20).
The COA determined that the circuit court did not erroneously exercise its discretion by limiting Pacheco’s plea withdrawal to the OWI charges. It considered that the errors affecting the OWI pleas did not undermine the validity of his plea to sexual assault, he retained the benefits of the State’s agreement not to reissue the dismissed and read-in charges for a third OWI case and sexual assault charges that were dismissed and read in. (¶ 20). Although Pacheco lost the benefit of the State’s negotiated sentencing recommendation that the OWI sentences run concurrently with the sentence for sexual assault, “the loss of that benefit did not, by itself, require the circuit court to vacate the entire global plea agreement. The court also considered the interests of the State and the victim, the disparity in seriousness between the offenses, and the fact that Pacheco’s plea to the more serious child sexual assault charge remained valid and unchallenged.” (¶ 21).